


An Ode To Your Knuckles

by masongirl



Series: The best laid plans [1]
Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Confessions, Crush at First Sight, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Libraries, Love Poems, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Toye, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23460694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masongirl/pseuds/masongirl
Summary: Joe didn't know the love of his life would ask him out through the university's anonymous confession page.
Relationships: George Luz/Joseph Toye
Series: The best laid plans [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682071
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	An Ode To Your Knuckles

**Author's Note:**

> The story of how Joe and George got together. I hope you guys will like it! :)

Joe’s mind can't leave the Indian summer that blew through the city two days ago. The sun seemed to light the library's sandy walls on fire, blinding against the deep blue sky, but the stone was hard and cold under his palm. He wondered if George's skin would be deceiving like that, looking soft and warm and welcoming, but hiding something harsher. He wondered if his lips would be the same. He squinted in the light that broke through between the marble pillars and tried to conjure up something witty, but George was two steps ahead of him as always, and then he was on his tiptoes and there was no space left for breathing.

"Hey, someone left a carton of condoms in the laundry room, think we can snatch it before it's gone?" Bill interrupts Joe's thoughts from his place on the floor, swinging an arm back against the couch and hitting Joe's stomach with it.

"I don't care about this crap, Guarnere." Joe growls. He was just getting to the good part of his memory, on the hundredth replay. He crosses his arms over his chest and sighs at the ceiling.

"Eh, you're no fun." Bill scoffs, scrolling through the university's anonymous confession page. "All you do nowadays is lying around and doing… that." He gestures at Joe's face, looking disgusted.

"I'm thinking."

"Of what? Don't tell me that Webster infected you with his _philosophitis."_

"Fuck no." Joe huffs. He's not maudlin because some dude two thousand years ago got high and thought the universe was a cave - he's lovesick, terribly so. He wants and yearns and pines, yes, he has to admit it, he's pining. Every day, George seems to come closer and closer to his reach, but they are not there yet and he can't stop daydreaming.

"Check this out, what a legend. She wrote a poem to someone's knuckles." Bill chortles, forgetting his previous complaints in favor of sharing another bullshit post.

Joe muted him and Babe on his social media for twenty-four hours, because the only person he wants notifications from is George. He doesn't have the patience to look through dozens of braindead memes when his body pretends it's having a heart attack twice an hour. His excitement is out of control and makes him jittery. The last time he had a serious relationship was in high school, he's been living the casual college life since then. But with George… Joe has a feeling that this is going to last for a while. If they get together.

Suddenly, Bill chokes on a breath and grabs his arm. "Hey, Joe, didn't you break your pencil last week?"

"So?" His stupid, negligent professor annoyed him with his unjustified marking system and, since he couldn't have a rage fit in the library and in front of George, no less, he took it out on his poor stationery.

Bill puts his phone on Joe's chest. "I think you should read this."

_Ode to Your Knuckles_

_Who gave you the right  
to come in and smear that  
spotless  
desk bloody with your  
fight-rough fingers, stubborn  
dumbass_

_I stared and could not  
look away, transfixed and  
helpless,  
it must have hurt to  
fall from heaven, but I  
digress_

_they were scraped and you  
looked dejected, angry and  
lifeless.  
Am I a fool to  
think I made you smile the  
brightest_

_that day, when I scared  
the freshman in our row  
shitless  
playing with my voice?  
Did it make the wounds hurt  
less?_

_I’m not a poet  
but I will try my damn  
_ _best  
to make you see I  
would make those knuckles my  
business_

_if you let me have your  
heart, I will not leave a  
mess,  
I promise. Last week  
you snapped it in two, the  
flawless_

_pencil in your hand, and  
the graphite tip rolled off,  
useless.  
Life without you is  
like that broken pencil -  
pointless._

"I -" Joe can hardly remember how to make his lungs draw air. He runs his fingers through his hair, heart pounding, racing, _stuttering_ in his chest, because this is meant for him and he knows exactly who it came from, and it's ridiculous and stupidly attractive.

"Someone wrote you a love poem!" Bill cackles at him. It's a good thing that he hasn't got the slightest clue about Joe's crush or that George is the single reason why Joe's a regular at the uni library.

"Shut up." Joe replies, hopes it's not shaky. He stands and steps away, tossing Bill's phone back as if he couldn't care less about the poem when on the inside, he's screaming. "I'm gonna make a sandwich, you want anything?"

Bill waves him off, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, and Joe goes out to the kitchen. Once there, he leans against the white tiles and exhales. _If you let me have your heart,_ George wrote. He wants Joe's heart. He truly likes Joe. George likes him!

The giddy feeling in his chest expands and he smiles widely at the dirty window of their dorm, too happy to contain it. He sighs again, shaking his head. "Oh, George…"

* * *

The first time they met was back in April, not long after spring break. Joe entered the library to find sanctuary from Guarnere and his redhead pet project, whose ass they saved in a bar fight that night. The study spaces weren’t as deserted as he would have expected from a Friday night, but he found a nice, quiet row in the back of the first floor where he could use a computer for a few hours of peace. His knuckles were a little banged up and one of his scrapes started bleeding when he flexed his fingers. He cursed, looking for a tissue or a napkin in his pocket to wipe the drop he accidentally smeared on the beige desk when the guy scanning the bookshelves beside him offered a pack. Joe remembers thinking he looked cute with his fringe standing up every which way as if he kept running his hands through it during a bout of desperate studying.

“Thanks.” He muttered gruffly, not in the mood for polite chit-chat.

George didn’t get the hint - or, more likely, just straight up ignored it - and propped his ass up on the back of a chair next to Joe. He put his hands in the pocket of his plain university brand hoodie, striking the worst flirting pose Joe has ever seen, and let his cheerful round eyes drop to Joe's knuckles. “Looks like you had a rough night, buddy.”

"A rough decade." Joe replied darkly. In retrospect, he has no idea what sparked George's interest or what kept it for that matter, because he was acting like an ornery hedgehog with steel spikes. Was it the challenge? "And I'm not your buddy."

"My bad."

George did some weird mixture of a pout and a smirk, then rolled back to his feet with more dynamism than what Joe could muster in a week. He sauntered away, running his index finger along the spines of some books on the shelf, then stopped behind a boy eating crackers with a pile of textbooks open on his desk. He had a goddamn lanyard around his neck and a whole array of sharpies to make notes, such an obvious fresher that it was painful. George winked back at Joe, then straightened his stance and clenched his jaw.

"Are those morsels on the pages? How do you expect our institution to uphold the standards of its collection when you pour _morsels on the pages!"_

Joe knows he gaped like an idiot, because that was a perfect impression of the uptight school librarian, Mr. "Water-is-contraband" Sobel. Scarily similar pitch and nasality in the voice. The guy eating his snack choked, jumping to his feet as if a fire had been lit under his ass. He almost fell over when he came face to face with George, then cursed under his breath and shot him a dirty look. George glanced back at Joe and caught his smile. Perhaps that was the pivotal moment. 

Joe found himself back in the library week after week at the exact same time and place. He couldn't explain it - it wasn't like he and George fell in love at first sight or some bullshit like that. They didn't even start talking. They said hi when they saw each other, George got up once in a while and walked down the row, running his finger along the books, Joe pretended he wasn't watching, and they kept to their respective studies as much as they could. It was two weeks before finals that Joe came in and couldn't find George anywhere. Disappointed, he sat down in the seat he basically claimed for himself and was stunned to find a post-it note stuck to the computer there.

_I'm here on Tuesdays too. :)_

_\- Not your buddy_

Joe almost died from embarrassment for having been called out on his… _habit_ like that. He was stupid, he knows now, but out of sheer stubborn pride, he refused to show up on the next Tuesday, sticking to his usual schedule. He tried to assure himself that he didn't have any other interest in the study space than learning.

On the last Friday before school broke up for the summer, to his immense annoyance, Joe couldn't get rid of Babe and Bill. They wanted in on the magical properties of "Joe's secret hideaway", as Babe put it, and they tagged along all the way. George was already there when they arrived, wearing a dress shirt for the first time since they had known each other, and he looked like a snack to Joe, there was no denying it at that point. His attraction had sneaked up on him like high tide. George's face fell a little when he spotted Joe's obnoxious companions, but he gave Joe a smile when Joe shot him an apologetic look and he didn't seem terribly bothered. _Why would he be,_ Joe thought. They never said more than two words to each other anyway.

It wasn't long before Joe's friends started fucking around with the computer, trying to come up with a new meme that they intended to make viral. Joe tuned them out and just watched George while he read. It wasn't a textbook in his hand, so Joe wondered what genre he liked for fun. He tried to guess which books George touched each week and why he did it, and he knows he thought he was being ridiculous for having such a deep interest, but his thoughts circled back to George no matter how hard he tried to control himself.

He studied the set of George's eyebrows and the curve of his lips, how he pursed them sometimes in an effort to hold back his emotions. The tiny dimples in his cheeks resembled the shadows of his smile. It's scary, but Joe had already memorized back then how that smile looked. George must have realised he was being watched. He put the book aside and opened his folder, drawing something on a sheet of paper with his blue pen. Then, he fastened it to the back of that folder by the elastic strap and raised the whole thing as if he wanted to read something on the other side like that.

 **I'm George,** the sign said in all caps. George drew a star at the bottom.

Joe suppressed most of his reaction, but he knows his eyes gave him away anyway. Knowing the name felt a little like unearthing a treasure, and his stomach seemed to fill with bubbles and rampant butterflies. George gave him a flirtatious look over the edge of the folder, and Joe's answering smile was their goodbye for the summer.

Since they came back, things have been escalating quite quickly. Joe couldn't keep himself away and wait for Friday like he would have had in April - his restless, preoccupied mind drove him to the library on the very first evening. He waited for two hours and was just about to give up when George whirled into their row, jacket askew and hair windswept. His skin was tanned from lazing around under the summer sun, and he grinned so widely it must have hurt. "I hoped you'd be here."

Joe smiled back and, for the first time, he left the computer to walk closer. "George, right?"

As if he didn't spend most of the summer biting down on that name at the peak of pleasure or groaning it into his pillow in frustration when he couldn't fall asleep. He couldn't even find George on social media, and the lack of contact was torture. In the absence of the real thing, the fantasy of him grew and took over Joe's mind.

"Yeah, but everyone calls me Luz." George said with a shrug. But Joe didn't want to belong in that everyone. _There must have been a reason why George chose to introduce himself with his first name,_ he thought, and promptly decided to stick to it. Luz didn't sound familiar enough.

"Joe." He offered. They shook hands and finally, at long last, started talking.

Then, last Friday, a wave of warmth swept through the city and sparked one last flame of summer longing in everyone's heart. Joe was sunbathing with Bill, sitting on a low wall in the university's green heart with his head tilted back and his eyes closed. The lawn had been mowed just a few minutes before and it smelled like freshly cut grass. A bunch of skaters gathered by the nearby stairs, trying to perform neck-breaking tricks to outshine each other. Listening to their banter, Joe let his chest fill with hope for the upcoming semester. His phone buzzed with an incoming text.

It came from George.

_R u on campus?_

_ Of course _

_Can u come to the libr pls?_

_ Something wrong? _

_I'm nervous about a presentation_

_Need u to check the ppt_

In all honesty, it pleased Joe that within two weeks of talking every single day, he became George's first thought when he was worried about something. He shook Bill off, making up some nonsense excuse, and ran to the library as fast as he could. There was no need to hurry, but his mind was speeding ahead and his body tried to keep up, telling him to get to George immediately because George asked, he called for Joe.

"Hey, Joe." George flashed his crooked smile at him when Joe came wheezing to a halt next to his chair. "Jesus, did you race someone here?"

"Bill bet me five bucks that I couldn't make it from one end of campus to the other in five minutes." It was actually true, but Joe didn't take the bet, he wasn't stupid enough to try the impossible. Babe did.

George raised his eyebrows in disbelief but didn't comment. He reached for his laptop. "All right, so can I give you a mock presentation? I promise it won't be too nerdy."

It was the definition of nerdy and Joe loved every minute of it. George brought a smile to his face with clever jokes and colorful slides that resembled a short movie, nothing like the cringeworthy templates Joe had grown used to from the average lazy student. He went through the material without Joe ever looking at the time or losing his interest, and all of his lines rolled off his tongue naturally, never wavering. It was impressive.

"How the hell did you do that?" Joe stared helplessly when it was over and the timeline running on the slides zoomed out to reveal the larger context.

"Animations." George replied as if it was obvious and not something that deserved extra appreciation. "Well, animation systems."

Joe gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder and leaned back in his chair. The contact shot a lightning bolt of electricity through his arm. "You're going to ace this, I don't know what made you nervous."

"I'm not really nervous." George admitted with a cheeky smile, leaning on his elbow with his head tilted coyly to the side. He kept watching Joe's eyes. "I just wanted to talk to you and make you laugh."

Joe isn't like Babe who blushes if anyone looks at him twice, but the directness caught him off-guard and his face heated up. He's not one to be pursued often either. "Oh."

After a minute of charged silence, George took pity on him and stood up as if to go. He took a sip of the flavored water he likes. "I'm glad you could come."

Joe followed suit, shouldering his bag and scanning the way to the exit just to force his gaze away from George. "Me too."

When they stepped outside, the sun was already on its descent and bathed the world in coppery gold. The sparse cloud of dust stirred up by a cyclist glittered in a ray of sunshine. Most trees had changed into their red-brown-yellow outfits, but the grass was green as ever, a burst of shades. Those bright autumn colors suited George and his quirky energy, Joe thought. He drummed his hand against a deceptively cold marble pillar and tried to string a compliment together, anything nice that could let George know how he felt, but the words eluded him.

Suddenly, George's hand wrapped around his and yanked, pulling him back a step, under the arcades.

"Hey." George smiled and kissed Joe on the mouth.

His lips were just as soft and warm as they looked, and Joe could have wept from relief and the dose of joy that chaste, tentative peck blasted through him. He raised his arms and cupped George's face with his palms to steal a longer kiss, and George let him, swayed into the press of their lips with his fingers wrapped around Joe's forearms. The rasp of stubble on his chin was a surprise that Joe couldn't get enough of. He smelled like watermelon, because his love for that damned flavored water knows no bounds. Joe could barely let go when he pulled back.

"See you next week, Joe." George whispered, rubbed the tip of his nose to Joe's, then spun out of Joe's hold and into the current of students heading down to the bus stop.

* * *

And then he wrote this poem. Well, Joe suspects he wrote it earlier and submitted it to the confession page before their kiss, but it takes a few days for a confession to get posted and George must have counted on that too, the sly boy he is. How can one respond to a gesture like this? Joe wants to call him or send a text or write something equally ridiculous even though he doesn't have a poetic bone in his body. He wants to run over to George's flat and jump him, but he doesn't know the address. If he wants to do it in person, he has to wait an entire day. How the hell is he supposed to function that long?

He skips all his lectures on Monday because his concentration is a shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean. He tries to sleep the morning away because at least his heart isn't beating double-time during oblivion, then forces his lunch down even if it tastes like ash. At two, he gets dressed and paces his room until he can't take it any longer and heads down to campus.

George's already in the library. Brazenly defying Sobel's regulations, he's sitting on the desk next to Joe's favorite computer, looking at his phone and playing with the strings of his hoodie. His head snaps up when Joe reaches him, and his lips twitch in the beginnings of a smile but Joe kisses him before it could brighten the room. His arms wrap around Joe's waist without a hint of hesitation.

"My knuckles, really?" Joe mumbles and leans back just far enough to look him in the eye.

George's smile is radiant and pure, unabashed. He tightens his hold around Joe. "I wasn't sure you'd see it."

"I did."

"You did." George nods and spends a few seconds staring up at Joe like he has only just realized what's happening. His lips curve into a lopsided smirk. "I would have serenaded you if you hadn't."

"You're crazy." Joe grins and kisses him again, then hugs him tight and rests his chin on George's shoulder, rocking them from side to side. "Will you go out with me?"

"You bet."

_~End~_

**Author's Note:**

> Check out [this tumblr post I made](https://speirtongirl.tumblr.com/post/612892324744331264/easy-company-class-presentations) if you want to see the first slide of George's presentation.


End file.
